Respect the children's personalities, understand their developmental needs, and appreciate their achievements. In this way you avoid standing opposite the children as a representative of arbitrary authority and take your place beside them as wiser persons who understand them and who are willing to help them in their endeavours.

Mario Montessori Jr, Education for Human Development

All our handling of him will bear fruit, not only at the moment, but in the man he is destined to become. To understand the baby's mind it is absolutely essential to take the path of observation and discovery.

Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

The truly great authority and dignity of parents rests solely upon the help they are able to give their children in building themselves. The child can only build well if this help is given in a suitable way.

Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

A man's accomplishments do not depend upon his teachers, but upon what he himself has done.

Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child

Each person close to a child is important and can be an educator.

Silvana Montanaro, Understanding the Human Being

The child's helper is admitted to an intimacy which exceeds affection, because help is a greater gift than consolation.

Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

They are not understood because adults judge them according to their own standards. They believe that a child is concerned with external ends, and they lovingly assist him to attain them. Instead, a child is dominated by an unconscious need to develop himself. He consequently condemns anything that has been attained and longs for that which is still to be achieved.

Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child

For the most part, the short and simple lesson should consist of an explanation of the object and of the use which the child can make of it. The teacher will note whether or not the child is interested in the objects, how he shows his interest, how long he is interested in it and she will take care not to force a child's interest in what she is offering.

Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child

The principal agent is the object itself and not the instruction given by the teacher. It is the child who uses the objects, it is the child who is active, and not the teacher.

Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child

Everyone knows that it requires much more time and patience to teach a child how to eat, wash and clothe himself than it does to feed, bathe and dress him by oneself. The one who does the former is an educator, the latter a servant.

Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child

Too often a teacher commands, because he is strong and expects a child to obey because he is weak. Instead of acting in this way, an adult should show himself to a child as a loving and enlightened guide assisting him along the way.

Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child